In the past, various types of lubricating oil feed devices have been provided in power transmissions to assure that the bearings and the clutch disks receive adequate oil during operation of the transmission. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,935,889, issued May 10, 1960 in the name of Adams et al. provides a baffle and tube arrangement for a friction clutch wherein oil contacting the baffle is directed to the tube and afterwards is moved by means of a coil spring to the clutch disks. Another form of an oil directing device for providing oil to a clutch, which in this case is a roller clutch, can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,848,177 issued on Jul. 18, 1989 in the name of Miura et al. In the Miura et al. '177 patent, an oil infeed plate 32 is press-fitted onto the inner peripheral surface of a ring gear of a planetary gear unit. The Miura et al. infeed plate 32 in one form is L-shaped in cross section while in two other versions the infeed plate takes the form of a disk having projections and recesses to increase the oil infeed force for introducing lubricating oil to the roller clutch during rotation of the infeed plate.
In addition, U.S. Pat. No. 4,231,266 issued to Nishikawa et al. on Nov. 4, 1980 shows a power transmission unit provided with a protrusion on an inner wall of the housing that is splashed with lubricating oil pumped upwardly by rotation of an idler gear on the idler shaft with an oil receiver arranged under the protrusion to receive the oil dropping from the protrusion and direct it to an bearing of the idler shaft. Another patent disclosing a lubricating oil directing device is U.S. Pat. No. 4,955,852 issued to Morisawa on Sep. 11, 1990. The patent to Morisawa shows a generally annular lubricant receiver 204 secured to the carrier of a planetary gear unit and serving to direct oil to the bearing associated with planetary gears 60 and 62. Also, it will be noted that certain automobiles manufactured by Mitsubishi have a four-speed transmission identified as ATX(F4A42) that utilizes a lubricating oil directing device made of sheet metal. The Mitsubishi device is fixed to the carrier and is similar to the Morisawa device in that it is positioned around a longitudinally extending opening in the support shaft of the planetary gear and flares outwardly so as to provide a oil receiving portion for feeding the oil into opening of the support shaft.
Although the above described oil directing devices provide a means for feeding lubricating oil to various parts of a power transmission, one problem with the oil feed devices as seen in Nishikawa et al., Adams et al., and Mitsubishi is that separate fasteners (such as screws or rivets) are needed to allow them to maintain a fixed position relative to an adjacent part of the transmission. The Miura et al. oil directing device, and it appears the Morisawa device, do not use separate fasteners but instead has a peripheral portion thereof secured to an associated gear member by a press-fit operation. A problem with press-fits for securing one member to another is that it requires special tooling and tolerance considerations and therefore increases the assembly time of the members and cost of manufacture.